I spent the bulk of the pandemic at the helm of the British Columbia Provincial Health Services Authority and then left and moved back east to establish my consulting practice in strategic management and executive coaching. In parallel, in my personal life, I found myself heavily involved in helping my aging mother fight for her life and navigate through the complexities of the health care system. A contrast in experiences was eye-opening; that drove raw mindfulness to a new level. Part of my blog development is to explore this concept of raw mindfulness. To me, raw mindfulness refers to a state of lucidity that cuts through biases, censorship, canceled culture and other influences that may impede seeing and stating facts the way they are. In a sense, it is about coining unfiltered, factual truths as much as we can.
Our experience of health care is so dependent on our life circumstances, our viewpoints, our roles within the system, our needs, the social forces at play and the many different people we meet and interact with. Living through such contrasting experiences when I found myself helping my mother navigate the system after many years at the helm of health organizations made me realize even more so how complex health systems are. Our awareness, knowledge and mastery of those systems can be improved, which in turn may help improve those systems and enhance our experience of them. No individual can, alone, fully capture health systems and the multiple potential experiences of them. It is just too complex. That’s why sharing is a good way to raise awareness that may, in turn, drive improvements.
Sharing our experiences, knowledge and opinions becomes critical to developing a better understanding of all facets of such complexity and fostering improvements. So, I decided to share my view of the world, write on health care and attract other viewpoints to create a hub enabling a healthy development of raw mindfulness towards our health systems, our experience of them and their outcomes. Welcome to this emerging world of shared reality!